I have a folder shared and I copied it to another computer just fine, but two individual files say I don't have permission to copy them. And the filename is in green in Windows explorer on both the copy-from (W7) and copy-to (Vista) PC. I never saw this before, what does it mean and how do I fix it? These two files are nothing special.
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1 Answer
Files shown in Green are encrypted.
Files shown in Blue are compressed.
Both of these actions are fairly low level file system / Windows actions that effect how the file is stored, but not it's structure or content (like compressing in to a zip file would, for example).
The two are mutually exclusive - NTFS cannot compress and encrypt a file at the same time.
Files encrypted in this was can only be decrypted by the user account that performed the original encryption.
Some sources (from social.answers.MS; couldn't find anything more authorative):
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Is there any way a file can get encrypted without me doing it?– Mr. BoyCommented Feb 18, 2011 at 10:01
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@John could someone else could have encrypted it (since it was a shared folder)? This is filesystem/Windows level encryption (ie, from the file properties window, not a 3rd party software).– DMA57361Commented Feb 18, 2011 at 10:03
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No it is only shared amongst my computers. If the file was encrypted already and someone emailed it to me would the encryption remain or is it not part of the file itself?– Mr. BoyCommented Feb 18, 2011 at 10:07
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@John It's not part of the file, but the way it is stored, so it would lose the encryption if emailed. You can only decrypt them with the user account that originally encrypted them (so if you encrypted them using an account on another computer you'd need to access them from that account on that computer).– DMA57361Commented Feb 18, 2011 at 10:09
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@John You might wish to see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypting_File_System#Recovery , although it's not good news.– DMA57361Commented Feb 18, 2011 at 10:14